Given what happened to Joe Biden in June when he attempted to debate Donald Trump, I'm shocked that Kamala Harris or anyone else in the party would want to risk a dip in those shark-infested waters again. But we may be on the way to another showdown... possibly. Trump announced last night that he had accepted an offer from Fox News to debate Harris on their network on September 4, with Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum serving as moderators. But there's a significant piece missing from this puzzle. The Harris campaign has not signaled that she has agreed to take part in the debate. Harris has been insisting that she wants Trump to debate her in a previously scheduled September 10 event hosted by ABC News. In response, Trump said that he didn't want to finalize any debate plans until Harris was officially the nominee, so the fur is beginning to fly already. (NY Post)

Donald Trump announced late Friday night that he has accepted an offer from Fox News to debate Kamala Harris in September.

The former president said in a Truth Social post that the debate would be held in Pennsylvania on Sept. 4 and hosted by Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.

It’s unclear if the vice president has agreed to the Fox News debate. The Post has reached out to her campaign for comment.

Harris has wanted Trump to stick to the scheduled Sept. 10 debate on ABC News which was originally slated to be a showdown between Trump and President Biden.

The questions lingering over the ABC News debate are complicated, to put it mildly. First of all, Trump agreed to debate Joe Biden on September 10, not Kamala Harris, so the original agreement really shouldn't be binding. Further, Trump is currently engaged in litigation against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos. This could potentially set up a conflict of interest situation, casting a shadow over the entire proceeding.

The original debate took place on CNN because that's what the Biden campaign insisted on. They wanted the debate held on a network that was friendly to Democrats and moderated by hosts known for pitching softball questions. Trump was pretty much forced to agree because he was the one who threw down the "any time, any place" flag to begin with. I've already acknowledged here that I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at the way the hosts handled the event, asking some moderately tough questions of both men. Biden's people got what they demanded and we all saw the disastrous results.

The situation this time will be different, assuming it happens at all. There has been no public agreement made on this subject between Trump and Harris. Unlike Biden, Harris has already stated that she wants to debate Trump. She should not be allowed to demand that the event be held only on her terms this time. Fox has proven repeatedly that they are capable of holding a fair debate without inserting massive amounts of partisan bias into the mix. Hannity hosted debates featuring both Gavin Newsom and RFK Jr. They were very even-handed events. Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum are completely up to this task and would take the job seriously.

Also, unlike CNN, Fox is promising to have a live audience for the debate. That's traditionally been an important feature, allowing viewers to get some instant feedback as to how the candidates are performing in real time. Biden's people insisted that CNN not have a live audience because they didn't want the viewers at home to hear any gasping coming from the crowd if their candidate began to swerve off the rails. That bit of insurance didn't really pay off because even Joe's handlers couldn't foresee how much of a disaster he would turn out to be. 

Kamala Harris isn't really even a legitimate nominee or someone who should be making demands regarding a potential debate. Not a single person voted for her in her party's primary. She was pushed forward by the party elders who clearly control the levers of power after they realized that Joe Biden was no longer a useful tool. I still hope that she winds up debating Donald Trump on a fair playing field, however. The country deserves to see them square off. And how much worse than Joe could she possibly do?